Him & I
by Windy Darlington
Summary: Raine Fording is an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. gone rogue. Setting the master criminal, Loki, free, is the least of her crimes. But Raine didn't free him out of loyalty or admiration: she is the only one who can see the truth in the God of Mischief's clever lies. And, in the end, Loki is the only person she can trust as everything she thought she knew falls apart before her eyes. [AU]
1. Bind the Devil Up in Chains

**HIM & I**

Cross my heart, hope to die  
To you, I've never lied  
For you, I'd take a life  
It's him and I, and I swear  
Cross my heart, hope to die  
This is our ride or die  
You can confide in me  
There is no hiding, I swear

Halsey – Him & I

* * *

– **łł CHAPTER ONE łł** –

She slammed through the metal service door and into the stairway railing. It rang up the shaft as she closed her fingers over the smooth black metal piping. She tipped her head back, felt her braid slide like thick rope down her back. Ninety-three stories rose above her, ending in a massive LED light.

 _Go Raine on his parade._

Raine grinned, jumping into motion like a racehorse from the gate; leaping up the stairs, boots pounding, hands ringing on the metal every time she slapped her palms to it. Her braid bounced against her back, and words spun through her conscience as she ran.

' _He turned Barton… Selvig… who knows who else...'_

' _Agent Coulson is down. He killed him.'_

' _Approach target with extreme discretion.'_

' _Don't die, Agent Fording.'_

' _I don't plan to, Director.'_

She shook her head as she grabbed the rails on either side and jumped three stairs; her smile slipped when she thought about Coulson.

Finally, she mounted the final flight of stairs and came to a brushed-metal door; she could see her fuzzy image in it as she approached. For a moment, she stood still, inhaling in the quiet. Reaching for her left arm, she pulled off the vibranium and admantium bracelet that clasped like a watch. It beeped shrilly once, before the blue light winked out. She slid it into a pocket on her uniform's pants and did the same with her right wrist.

"This is for Coulson," she muttered under her breath, inhaling and running at the door.

She slammed her hands against the touch-bar and came out in the penthouse at the peak of Stark Tower.

In the middle of what looked to be a face-off between the target and billionaire Mr. Stark.

Both men turned to look at her. Stark with a bewildered **'who are you?'** expression, but the target turned his head slowly, serpentine, and when he focused on her she wondered if this was how it felt to have a staring contest with a cobra.

It was still, electricity charging the air, making it heavy.

Raine heard a thousand lives, a billion souls—sensed them in her blood and in her mind, screaming pleading. She felt the beat of Stark's heart and heard his fear. But from the target there was nothing… except for the steady pulse of shimmering blue-green humming over his heart.

Motion exploded all at once from the stillness.

The target heaved Stark through a window and whirled on her.

Rockets fired. The target lifted his alien technology and aimed, but the shot careened wide.

Something SLAMMED into him, knocking him flat.

Raine crouched near the floor, watching the rocket launch out the broken window Stark had pitched through, the compacted suit following his path.

 _A suit. Neat._ Her mind flickered away from Stark and his advanced prosthesis.

Broken glass crunched under heavy boots.

She turned her head.

' _His name's Loki. He's from Asgard. Related to Thor, but lacking his goodwill to earth.'_

Loki came toward her, stepping with care like a lion on the prowl, holding his weapon lightly in his fingers, the wickedly curved blade pointed toward the ground. Sunlight danced off it, a bright spot of light against the grey floor. The alien tech glowed, humming softly, like a whisper.

Suddenly something in it screamed at her, shrill, high, relentless. She grimaced, shook her head. The sound rose, broke out, mounted into a crescendo like a wave. With a yell she lept to her feet, throwing out a hand toward the staff—

POWER _boiled_ from behind Loki at a torrential pace like a ripple of heat.

He turned as it towered over him, throwing up his free hand before his face. A green blast came from his open palm—

 _SLAMMED_ against the sound-wave with a deep _boom_.

More glass shattered in the windows.

The tile beneath his boots splintered, snapped, _cracked_. He sank into the ground, refusing to give against the sound-wave.

Raine grit her teeth, pressing her outstretched hands toward the sound-wave.

Loki screamed—unbridled rage ripped it from him.

He lifted the gold staff, braced, and threw his weight against it as a cerulean blast burst outward from the living gem set in the blade, throwing the sound-wave toward the windows in shimmering ripples.

Silver and violet blinded her.

Raine heard herself shriek as the sound-wave shattered against her will.

PAIN _raced_ though every vein. Two solitary tears tracked down her cheeks.

Forcefully she opened her tight-shut eyes and gasped in a breath, anger leaping up.

She felt the staff's alien strength, felt the power slithering, rippling, shimmering from—around through over within—Loki.

He breathed through his nose once very hard. His exhale rasped out between his lips.

She lifted her head, jerked herself off her knees unsteadily like a newborn colt. At the same instant he spun around, leveling the staff toward her. Raine locked her eyes onto it, saw it pulse like nebulae within the casing of azure crystal.

She stiffened all at once, felt her spine lock, hard. Blue threads spun outward in a black-velvet night, slithering like strands of a spider's web outward from the throbbing cobalt heart. Dozens— _scores_ —of human souls, caged, beaten down, repressed with only a weakly-fluttering fragment unleashed; all of them bending to the will of the one who held the golden staff.

Barton–there was Barton!

—The tie to him was weak, she snapped it.

It broke with a clarion ring that echoed in her head. Distantly she heard someone snarl, an angry keen of pain.

Her eyes flew open when the azure center of the web flared. For a moment, her eyes shone brilliant sapphire. They faded to grey.

She stared at Loki. Hatred burned in his eyes; a radiant lapis lazuli.

He gripped the staff until his fingers turned a bloodless-white, braced his shoulders and his arms as the gem sent a whistling blast toward her.

Raine flew away from it, ducking down behind a length of padded bench-seating. The sound of the blast hitting the wall hummed in her mind, the path it left through the air burned into her brain like a contrail in the sky.

A wordless scream came from Loki.

Boot-steps crunched over broken glass.

Raine skittered to her feet and leapt up three shallow steps, ducking and rolling behind the bar. A small blast shuddered against the metal and stone barricade between her and him. Raine felt her heartbeat pound madly against her breastbone.

She threw her mind out, toward Loki's power signatures.

If she could only get _close_ enough.

She set her jaw, wracking her brain for a plan. Nothing came up, nothing but one thought. She had to lunge at him, make as if to wrest that damned staff from his hands. With a nod to herself, checking her comm—it died when Barton hijacked the helicarrier—in case someone had managed to get the wavelength back on. But it was dead. Raine pulled it from her ear, flicked it away from her, and slid along the sleek tile to peer around the end of the bar.

Loki leapt on top of the counter in the same instant.

His boots _slammed_ against the granite.

The sink head _snapped_ in half.

The metal on his war-coat slapped and jangled like the chrome trappings on a parade horse. His leather hissed as it rubbed together.

Loki growled and lashed out a hand for her braid.

Raine ducked her head away and _threw_ herself around the edge of the bar.

She rolled down three steps to the main floor of the penthouse. Each drop jostled her, and she felt breathless as she cambered onto her hands and knees.

Loki rose from his crouch on the bar. His head nearly hit the ceiling.

She jerked into movement. He leaped off the counter, reconnected with the floor, and without pause, pursued her. She came up short, whirled on him, and he nearly trampled her, but halted, wheeling back on his heels.

Raine lunged into him as he raised the staff. Her palms stung as they came into contact with the metal.

The power _surged_ through her, fire _swarmed_ through her veins. She gasped, her head reeled—

HEAT cleaved her core like a knife, and the ice flew after it in wild, chaotic disorder.

She breathed, it hitched. But her mind cleared, blocking the dazzle of saccharine power.

Loki attempted to tear the staff out of her hands with brute force. Raine drew down on the power in the air, weaved it into her muscles, willed it to fight back against Loki's strength.

The taut muscles in his jaw flexed, his eyes an incensed azure when she met them with her own soft grey. He shook the staff with a wild desperation, as if hoping that would throw her off, but she held on with renewed tenacity.

"I'm going to kill you, woman," he snarled, his voice rasping malevolently. "And when you are dead, I will bind your body to a pole and set it up high so all know what fate they will face when I am tested!"

Something cold clamored over her heart. Her lungs felt as if she had inhaled morning air on a winter day. Raine gasped, stared at him wide-eyed.

 _What_ …

A choked pant came from her; violent blue glazed over her eyes. Something in her mind screamed desperately. She felt as if she were drowning—an abyss of blue covering over her, enveloping like a blanket, whispering to succumb, to give in, to submit—the call of the void a siren song in her ears.

Loki smiled, and it was backed by the anticipation of victory. His eyes glimmered with absolute madness. Softly, like embers almost dead, fear—and something else her subconscious could not interpret—shone in the form of unshed tears.

Raine felt herself sinking toward the floor, her joints going weak. Her palms were damp and slipping, her fingers ached with holding on—

 _Let go, let go, let go!_

— _It pulsed through every beat of her heart out into her fingertips until they hurt with holding on. Stars shinned like a kaleidoscope overhead. PANIC filled her. No, no, no. She did not want to die; but what had she now? The void called to her sweetly, she could not ignore it; she had nothing left, she was done, failure, outcast—_

 _Let go, let go, let go…._

LET GO, LET GO, _LET GO!_

The strange flash of vision faded out, the chant in her head turned to a shrill, relentless scream. Dogged determination pressed against the onslaught of hypnotizing deep blue.

 _ **LET GO, LET GO, LE—**_

"N-no!" Raine panted, grimacing as she fought back against the crippling azure coursing throughout her body.

"Stop fighting it, Midgardian!" Loki's hissing voice pierced through the blare of sounds united in indecipherable cacophony in her head. "In the end it's not worth the suffering!" He bore down on her from his side of the staff.

Raine felt her knees buckle again. Her hands held the staff inside of his wide grip. She slid her hands down the gold rod, until the outside of her hands touched the insides of his.

Loki frowned, slackened his press for dominance, gaze flickering to her fingers, brows furrowing in bewilderment.

Raine half-opened her left hand, and her forefinger grazed over the top of Loki's. He shuddered, exhaled a gasp of surprise. Raine's power surged, transcending her body into his through that momentary touch of skin to skin. Her power licked up through his veins, tracing each and every flare of emerald and gold magic Loki possessed.

Then, without warning, Raine felt her strength slam into a cold wall of endless blue. In the dark plains of her mind her violet power recoiled, and instantaneously the blue wall lunged outward, meaning to seize the hesitating tendril.

Loki cried out, but there were no words in it. His fingers suddenly enveloped hers, clenching tightly.

Raine bit her tongue, coming out of herself and back to the fight, as his fingers relentlessly crushed her hands. Tears sprang into her eyes. She forced her power back, searching for a way through the blue wall—she _must_ get beyond it to end this contest of strength.

Raine grasped for more power in the air, and then hijacked Loki's own strength. A dulled sense of elated mischief clamored through her emotions, and her eyes sparkled at her cleverness. She gathered his strength up alongside hers and slammed it into the azure wall.

Loki's spine stiffened. His fingers curled like iron talons in immediate response.

Raine screamed in pain. Loki echoed it as she employed their joint strength in battering against the wall around his mind.

"Get _OUT_!" Loki suddenly keened.

He gathered his power, as if he had hidden reserves of it she had not found—then she realized it lay concealed beyond the wall—and drove it like a fine point into her mental battering ram. Raine felt herself being routed.

It burned with a fire; she fled before the onslaught. But then she stopped.

Mauve replaced the violet, and she drew it up and worked it hastily into a net of chains. Emerald and gold bore down on her, so she flung the net over it, binding it down—unbreakable. Her heartbeat spasmed five times, but she steadied, breathed deep.

The man in front of her gasped, and his eyes flew open; tears tracked down his face in shock. Raine imagined she looked similar.

They panted heavily, for a moment neither of them fighting.

A shudder worked over Loki's entire frame, like a horse unsettling flies.

Raine swallowed, her throat dry.

The emerald and gold bucked and jerked against the net, but the mauve links held fast. Loki's eyes flashed blinding sapphire, hard as diamond with hatred and soundless terror.

"What… have you… DONE?" Abruptly he lunged forward, pushing the staff outward. Raine felt her feet fly from beneath her. Fear welled up in her throat.

She let go, fingers clawing the air as she tumbled backward down three steps.

Her back struck the concrete _hard_.

Her breath wheezed from her.

She looked up at Loki hastily. The staff shimmered, became a spear. He screamed, gripped the shaft of the golden spear in both hands as he lunged off the top step.

He was going to pin her to the concrete.

Raine spun on her shoulder, rolling out from beneath the point of the spear. She rolled over and over and _over_.

Raine landed on her stomach five feet away.

Her knuckles _ached_ from when Loki had crushed them together beneath his fingers. She whirled her head to the right to look at her assailant. Loki cursed in an unknown language as the spear gouged a white line through the concrete where she had been lying moments before.

He stumbled, fell to one knee, palm pressed flush with the ground. His dark head whipped around, and his fixed his calculating, infuriated gaze on her.

Slowly, he lifted himself up.

Raine braced her elbows, got her legs underneath her, clawing backward, trying to regain her feet as he advanced.

"You… _fettered_ me." His voice was soft—with contempt or wonder or disbelief she couldn't tell.

Raine came to her feet, feeling unsteady; for a moment her vision clouded—she honed in on the mauve chain, but it held fast; the magic behind it screeched at such restraint.

Raine looked at him, focused, drew in a breath, steadied her limbs. "You've never had anyone hold you down?" She felt surprised. She was _sure_ the blue wall….

"Never, and you will be first and last to do so." He leveled the staff.

Raine noticed it too late. She threw up her hands, a sound-wave rose in front of her like a shield.

The cerulean ball of fire spread around the barrier, licked at the edges, turned to liquid smoke; flying upward and vanishing into the ether in an eye-blink. Her limbs trembled. Exhaustion flowed through her like a river, threatened to close over her. But the fetter continued to hold fast.

Limbs trembling, she dodged another blast and then pounded once more at the blue wall.

Again, it shrieked, and Loki shut his eyes and screamed.

Raine pressed and pressed and _pressed_.

She snatched more strength from the air.

A flying thing raced past beyond the porch outside, so she drew from that fabulous, alien power. The vehicle plummeted from the skies.

As she found more reserves, she grew stronger, and came nearer her opponent.

Loki stood still in the center of the wrecked penthouse, spine rod-straight, teeth clenched, breathing deep, ragged lungfuls of air through his nose. He trembled, then tossed his head violently.

Raine reached out, encircling her fingers around his gold bracers. She bowed her head, closed her eyes, pushed her strength into him, against the wall, flooded his mind. The wall rebelled, pitching and tossing wildly.

A soft cry came form Loki. Raine looked up. Tears made his face wet as if with raindrops.

A cracking sound emitted from her subconscious. A fissure ran jaggedly through the wall.

Loki's head lifted, his chest heaved with a deep breath, his eyes flashed open.

They almost _glowed_ blue—

With a snap his eyes faded out to dazzling green—he panted, terror filled his expression, his hands made to clutch her arms—the blue crashed down again, turning gold and amber flecks in the green irises to silver-white. His gaze hardened.

Raine gasped as something bit along her strength, cold, heartless, cruel.

She felt something foreign— _alien_ —touch her conscious. It _hurt_. A whimper crossed her lips. She bit back a scream as tears leaked from beneath her lashes. Loki shifted.

Raine's eyes opened wide. She stared at his face.

Loki flung her like a rag doll.

Glass cut through her uniform, caught in her braid, as she was thrown through a window. Her body rolled painfully over rough concrete, and then before she could reach for it with numb fingers, she fell over the balcony edge toward the streets of New York below.

Violet colored her vision. For a moment fear tousled with her, and then she let it consume her halfway. Bones shifted in her back, sound and scent amplified, she inhaled—

A _roar_ shattered from her lungs.

She beat the air with her wings, tossed her head, felt her horns collide with a strange flying vehicle streaking through the air. It wheeled end-over-end before crashing into a nearby tower.

She looked, eyes rolling, to find the source of the noise overhead and saw a tear in the clear blue sky. Her mind fixed on blood and battle. Her bout with Loki faded out to nothing; for the moment.

– **łłłł –**

Raine transformed slowly.

She fell to her hands and knees amongst rubble and ruins and totaled cars, slowly raising her head as she watched the hole in the sky pop out of existence. Her leg was totaled, she mused as it bent two degrees and then would go no more. Director Fury would not be entirely pleased with being forced to ask Stark for another. Barton would joke, Romanoff would smile. Raine grinned herself, imagining the scene.

Then she closed her eyes, bowed her head.

Gleaming distantly in the dark of her conscious, the mauve chains still snared around the emerald and green—Loki's power pulsed, shuddered, flared, petered to nearly nothing, then pulsed bright again.

Raine swallowed.

He was exhausted—

As if he had fought a hundred fierce battles and not just their spat in the penthouse.

She followed the faint trail of his magic, weaving around in the dark, tracing down each path—she came to a swirling mass of deep green-nearly-black that whispered in the dark of her mind. Raine brushed against it.

AGONY made her see stars.

"Gah!" she bent over herself, arms wrapped around her ribs tightly. Tentatively she reached out, the whispers increased, but she could hear none of them distinctly. Then one voice—too much like Loki's own voice to not be his conscious—came to her thoughts. It babbled nonsensically about pain and avengers and defeat. There was something else—something he started to touch on but then shrank from in loathing. Steadily, slowly, one feeling dominated the others.

Violation.

Hatred seethed toward it, everything hinged on that sensation. Then—a soft, heady and sickeningly sweet, song came next—the desire for revenge.

Raine wondered, but then all at once everything fled into darkness. A soft orange glow appeared, and the name "Stark". The thought "drink" loomed up playfully, unsure, with longing. A flash of some drunken memory flared like a shooting star in Loki's mind and spun away.

Raine eased out from Loki's conscious; she dared not stay, dared not let him hear her, sense her, try to seize her. She left the fetter in place; it wasn't complete but it would be enough to restrain him.

Exhaustion overwhelmed her. Black swam in the back of her eyes. With shaking fingers she pulled the bracelets from her hip-pocket, latched them back on her wrists; the blue lights shone comfortingly as all the wails of a million New-Yorker souls fell silent.

Raine lay down on the uneven concrete, smelled the smoke and death and burning things, and pressed her eyes tight-shut.

* * *

 **A/N:**

 **This started life as a one-shot. I intended it to be merely a gift for AnnMarie Pavese, but it grew as I wrote it. There are so many ideas to play with in this story, that I could hardly help myself. For the sake of propriety and feasibility, Raine is 24, not 17 like she is in SSTD. This probably won't be a very long fanfic, perhaps ten chapters. And yes, this fanfic was largely based off the song (the no rap version) _Him & I_ by Halsey.**

 **Enjoy, readers, and please review!**

 **WH**


	2. Now Go & Set Him Loose

– **łł CHAPTER TWO łł –**

Raine stared through the one-way glass, hands behind her back, standing at parade rest. Her white hair lay coiled in a tight braid at the back of her head. Her clean back uniform fit her like a glove, jacked un-zipped half way down her belly, exposing the black S.H.I.E.L.D-issued fatigues beneath. Raine looked down at the toes of her boots for a moment and then raised her eyes again.

On the other side of the glass, Loki lay on the floor of a nine-by-sixteen foot concrete-and-steel-reinforced cell, hands folded over his diaphragm, feet together, like a corpse laid out. Slowly, his chest rose and fell. He still wore his battered and bloodied armor from the invasion.

When last she had entered it, Loki's mind felt wary, dazed, uncomfortable—as if he were reacquainting himself with it. He pawed doggedly through memories, growling that something was wrong as he searched them with a violence akin to what he had exhibited in Stark's penthouse. She didn't miss the bright specks of turmoil—like flares on the sun that exploded and then vanished. A sense of drifting loss shrouded most of his feelings, so he was numb—jealousy and hatred a shiny veneer over the great amalgam of emotions and thoughts.

Loki breathed, held it. Subconsciously, Raine did likewise.

His lashes fluttered, and he gazed without seeing it at the ceiling.

He exhaled in a rush.

He'd been interrogated by the Director himself, along with Thor and several other key S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, but he'd said nothing—nothing, except cheap laughter and snarls of absolute rage. He only one time spoke, as his interrogator was departing, and that was to condemn them all and to curse them.

Raine canted her head when Loki shifted his right shoulder stiffly. For a moment he winced, his fingers lifted as if to move, but then he stilled.

She came back to the wall of blue—she'd seen fringes of the wicked color lingering, and one night when she'd come down and he seemed to be sleeping, she'd traced them and routed them. Broken as they were, she felt them touch on her own mind—they'd magnified her anger, her uncertainty, her desire to succeed, and she'd nearly felt a compulsion to kneel, but with one snap of her violet power, the thoughts were snuffed out and the blue trails destroyed.

Raine reached out, pressed her palm to the glass. Her hand left white clouds on the cold glass, outlining her fingers. She'd had a good deal of time to think about it in the month he had been locked here, waiting for his fate.

She'd been able to inspect the scepter for a moment before it vanished into some high-security vault. She'd studied his mind from a safe distance. She thought she knew but could she be certain? She'd addressed the theory to the Asgardian and he had rebuffed it as impossible for someone as powerful as Loki, though she'd sworn the thunder-god's eyes had clouded with thought for a moment.

Raine held her arms out in front of her. Her sleeves pulled back with her movement, exposing the bracelets around her wrists; the little blue lights glowed. Her eyes flickered to Loki.

 _He_ didn't need bracelets.

Of course, he had them now because he was a terrorist. But that aside. Raine stared intently at Loki through the glass.

He'd seen her once since he'd been imprisoned. He'd looked at her impassively, yet respect had been in his eyes—at least she _thought_ —He'd nodded minutely, and his voice had been clipped when he'd spoken. He'd called her "Fetterer". She wasn't sure if he meant this as derogatory or complimentary—Raine wondered if with Loki it was both and also neither?

Raine felt the resolve in her solidify, become steel-firm. She looked at the keypad beside the armored cell door. With fingers that shook from adrenaline and the rush of doing something dangerous, she ripped off her bracelets. They beeped shrilly and then were quiet.

Summoning her power, Raine hurled a sound-wave at the door. The noise of it shattering the alarm into silence and cracking the lock was only a soft whisper down the metal hall.

Raine stepped up to the door brusquely, braced one shoulder against it, and shoved.

It slid open with groaning ease.

Loki turned his head to look at her, and then gracefully came to his feet. The chains cracked against one another.

Raine forged deeper into the room.

Three feet from him, Loki lunged at her.

Raine winced when the back of her head struck the concrete wall. He pressed the chains on his wrists against her neck.

Her fingers flew to it, wrapping around the links nervously. But she kept her breath even.

"To what honor, Fetterer?" He rasped, green eyes intense, stance threatening and wary.

"I refuse to be stupid; I'm not going to willfully ignore whatever it is you have to say—vague as you preached it." Her fingers clenched the chains tighter. She pressed back against them, leaning forward into his face; he pulled back warily, looking down his nose at her.

Fear hovered on the edges of his eyes and he gazed at her as if longing to speak and afraid to open his mouth— He looked as if he might cry.

Loki drew away from her, and as he did his expression smoothed over into a cool mask of indifferent amusement. He smiled and bowed his head as if acknowledging she had bested him at chess.

"Well, Fetterer, is this an attempt at cleverness or more brazen foolishness like what you exhibited in the tower fortress?"

"Stop it, Loki; I saw that wall—I know what happened and I know you're not insane!" She took five steps toward him. With a hiss he recoiled, chains rattling loudly.

"You saw nothing, Fetterer—NOTHING!" He tossed his head, glance darting toward the cell door, then her, and lastly, to his binds.

Raine outstretched her hand, palm flat, fingers spread. The cuffs cracked like the door.

Loki lifted dark eyes to her face. Raine met the intense gaze equally. She still had him fettered, they both knew it—at least, _most_ of his power had been locked away.

"Violation, degradation, groveling, loathing—you felt all of those things when you woke in the tower. I felt it. Tell me why, Loki; maybe we can do something about it before it's too late."

He stared, reluctance filling his eyes, though his expression remained impassive. Roughly he turned away, his back to her. Loki drew his arms up, she could hear him rubbing his hands, thumb to palms, making dry circles, massaging. His head remained bent.

"I cannot lie to you..." his voice faded down into a whisper, "because of the fettering."

"But you can still mislead me, play word games—be evasive." She knew how fettering worked, she'd done it enough. Rory had helped her learn that even the truth-bind of her ability to fetter had rules that could be skirted if one was clever enough to look for loopholes. And Loki was nothing if not extremely clever. She knew with certainty that he would try to outwit the bind.

Loki's dark head nodded slowly. He turned profile and looked at her. A small smile and a cunning glitter in his eyes remade his tense countenance. _"Yes."_

Anger made her squeeze her fingers into fists, arms pressed against her side. They hadn't time to dance around one another in verbal war, Raine knew they were short on time—soon enough someone would notice that she wasn't wearing her bracelets. She rubbed her left arm, looked at him squarely. He froze, eyes locked on some spot of floor in front of him.

"Be true."

He stared and stared—his expression changed, the greens of his irises lightened, darkened, the gold and amber flecks shone. He swallowed. "I swear I shall try."

His words sounded strangely genuine, and it made her uneasy.

"Good, make it your priority—I can kill by taking too much power; I've done it before."

Raine turned, striding out the door. Sirens sounded, he followed after her, steps ringing against concrete, metal on his uniform jangling.

The sirens continued to shriek overhead, and Loki canted his head, drawing himself up as they moved.

Raine turned, stopping when the sound of many feet on concrete came from around a corner ahead of them.

Loki glanced at her, something dark lit his eyes. She felt a nervous thrill as she raised her arms.

The agents careened around the corner in formation— Raine called a sound-wave. Then, suddenly, in her mind she felt the mauve chains shudder, the emerald and gold flared.

A blast of something wickedly-cold shattered outward from Loki, knocking men and women off their feet. Raine glanced at him in confusion, but Loki did not even look back at her, he only carried himself forward in a lithe, recoiled motion; a serpent waiting to strike.

Fifteen more armored agents rounded the corner of the hall ahead of them; blocking their exit. They looked at her; Raine saw incredulity and shock in the expressions and heard it in their souls for a fleeting instant.

Gunfire sprang to life.

Raine dodged a bullet, distracted by their numerous and loud thoughts as she scrabbled for control of herself—

Loki slammed her into a wall and stood in front of her; something ricocheted off his armor. He smiled, it was cold. "Please, do not die before unfettering me, Fetterer."

He whirled, something _sang_ from his hand.

Arcing through the air the projectiles embedded themselves into the throats and chests of five agents.

Daggers.

Raine bit back a cry, lunging toward the fallen people. Loki's left arm dug into her waist, pinning her to his side. She scratched against the leather and metal armor. But then as her fingers began to hurt from her actions, sanity came back to her; they were the enemy now; she no longer cared for them or fought with them as allies.

She was moved forcefully down the hallway, pinioned firmly against the god's side. All at once Loki's forehead pressed against her hair, his lips brushing the shell of her ear. For a moment she jolted, caught off-guard. Loki hurled another clutch of daggers with his free hand. "You are not one of them now—don't let the lines blur."

Someone grabbed at her from behind. She winced when the agent pulled _hard_. Loki danced around in a tight circle, grabbed the agent's collar and flung him backward. With a snarl twisting his features, Loki conjured a thick blade to his palm and threw it with all his strength at the stumbling agent.

His expression shifted, and Loki grinned with a sort of terrifying mirth, skirting a gun, only to whirl around and grab the barrel, shoving it in the agent's face and knocking the woman down.

Raine pushed against his bracer, but Loki kept hold of her, only drawing her nearer, his arm around her like a band of steel.

Another wave of agents—The Director's voice over the intercom a dull buzz in the back of her mind.

Loki maimed scores, then moved over them as if they were stones in a field.

At last Raine clutched an unsteady hold on her power and managed to wield it with almost as much dexterity as Loki materialized an endless supply of weapons. On level five someone threw a grenade at them. She hastily drew up a thin sound-wave.

Loki turned his back on the explosion, wrapped his arm around her waist, and his other hand—despite holding a dagger—pressed her head against his chestpiece. He watched over his shoulder as the sound-wave held off the blast radius of the grenade.

Raine felt her nerves fraying at the edges. Her fingers shook when she dissipated the sound-wave and they strode onward, Loki as confident and certain of every step as he'd been on the helicarrier—and during his invasion of Manhattan.

Raine turned away from the long stretch of grey hallway in a moment of respite from the fighting, drawing inward, to the blackness of her subconscious. She studied the mauve netting. Carefully, looking at the magic from every angle, she latched a collar and chain on it, and flung off the net.

Loki's arm steeled at her waist, and for a fraction of an instant his fingers curled painfully into her uniform, digging into her skin. He relaxed the next moment, raised his free hand as they arrived at a thickly barricaded door.

The door to level nine – the lobby of S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters.

Raine felt her pulse skyrocket.

She could feel Loki's heart pounding with adrenaline and anticipation even through his thick armor.

Beyond the heavy doors, thoughts and emotions tangled—she shook her head violently, the pain in her head drowning out her violet power like a tsunami engulfing the shore. Loki said something, but she couldn't hear it. She pulled back, toward the mauve chain, clung to it, stole strength from the emerald and gold well of power there beside her.

"Enough! Stop!" Loki's voice, shouting in her head. She forced her eyes open when she was released and a rough hand clutched at her upper arm, dragging her along.

"You—you're draining me, I cannot possibly..."

Wildly, he flung green light toward the doors, it ricocheted weakly off the metal. Loki clutched her up to him in hasty protection when the magic flared out, a soft explosion.

"I'm sorry—the—the voices, the power, I'm sorry," Raine attempted feebly as Loki lurched forward toward the still-barred doors.

Distantly behind them they could hear heavy boots pounding the corridor.

Loki drew up, looked down at her with an imperious expression that made her feel as if she were seven years old. "What... voices?" he rasped, eyes darting to look toward the door and then back as they'd come.

"I can hear it... the power, spirits, magic, whatever you'd call it—I can hear it, all of it—every single one."

Loki wrapped his arm around her waist again, as if afraid she'd run off and leave his magic curbed. He moved toward the doors.

Then, abruptly, she could feel his consciousness wresting its way into hers, not attempting finesse, though not unrefined in talent.

Something bright lit up the plains of velvety darkness in her mind, then something flared bright—a violet strand twisted with gold, and emerald bound around it tight, like a tourniquet. Raine gasped in awe when the voices beyond the door faded to a soft buzzing.

"Better, woman?" As he spoke Loki drew himself up and _slammed_ a brilliant flare of magic against the doors. She could hear his teeth snap together with the force of his exertion.

Raine's vision dazzled at the great light.

A heavy _boom_ reverberated.

Beyond the doorway, people screamed in fright—but she could hardly hear their thoughts. Raine had no time to think about her respite.

Loki stepped forward, and she was forced to take shuffling skip-steps at his side to keep up with his swift pace.

Raine pulled at her power, and the violet came to her. With a sound-wave, she cleared a path through the people, pushing them aside as Loki advanced, so that he needn't _kill_ them as he seemed so fond of doing.

Loki laughed, blasted a green flare at some strange weapon on wheels that several agents attempted to wield against them.

Raine looked up at him. He exhaled, glanced down at her.

His mad laughter died on his lips. He stared intently, and a shadow like remorse crossed his eyes.

All at once, something grazed his face, flinging his head back, shattering the moment.

Raine scrabbled for support, fingers curling through the strap across Loki's chestpiece, the gold plate digging into her skin, as he listed to the right.

Loki hissed as he recovered himself, turning in a defensive half-circle. A gash of crimson slashed his cheek, blood beading on the edges of the cut, sliding in scarlet drops down his face like blood tears.

Raine felt a soundless terror claw up her throat—he'd never had blood drawn from any of their weapons before.

She tossed her head, looked behind them, her cheek pressed against the designs in the metal on Loki's upper arm.

Phase II weapons.

Wildly she wrenched her arm from Loki's hold, raised her hand toward the threatening black weapon that pulsated a cold blue light. Her sound-wave tore through the alien-looking gun, pieces curled down the barrel of it like pencil shavings. The blue light shrieked. Agents shouted and ran for cover.

The blast growled like an ominous thunderhead.

The explosion _rocked_ the building.

Loki threw up an arm to shield his face as the heat swept through level nine.

Raine gasped, it was so _hot_.

Loki's jaw bumped her head, she felt the bridge of his nose press through her hair; he twined both of his arms around her as the explosion rolled over them steadily.

His breath blew cold down one side of her face, catching under her collar. _He_ felt cold.

Raine opened her eyes as Loki jerked smoothly back into action, spinning out, leather coattails slapping her calves. She nearly fell, the circle he spun as he flung daggers and ice making her dizzy.

He slammed his forearm into the chest of an agent, cutting a path; the man went flying.

Raine recovered her equilibrium and managed to summon a sizable sound-wave, sending a dozen people off their feet. A woman with flaming red hair fell down hard against a concrete pillar. Raine tried to look back at her to see if she'd been hurt, but couldn't see around Loki's shoulder.

Loki growled, and it reverberated in his chest; she could feel it in her own, he'd drawn her so close to his side.

Raine kept one hand on the strap crossing his chestpiece as they stumbled toward the glass doors.

They reached the door, as one slammed their hands against it.

They were thrown up against the barricade when it refused to give beneath their combined weight.

Locked.

"By the Norns..." A grating howl tore from Loki.

Raine whirled back as they'd come.

Agents were regrouping themselves, a new pack coming down the wide stairs at the far end of the building.

Raine turned back around, slapped her palms against the metal handle, but it was a futile exertion. She grit her teeth.

"We don't have any time for this!"

"Correct, Fetterer." Loki snared her around the waist once again and angled his shoulder-plate against the glass. It cracked, lines streaking through it. Slivers flew off, Loki pressed his shoulder against the glass with renewed vigor, teeth bared. A dull roar tore from his throat as he jerked back on his feet and then _slammed_ his body against the glass.

The door trembled, the glass cracked loudly. Lines spidered through it.

Then they went stumbling through as the glass broke, shards coating them, clattering against the concrete as Loki forced his way outside.

Jeeps and other vehicles marked with the S.H.I.E.L.D. insignia screeched toward them. From around the corner of a building Raine thought she saw Rogers dart among the black-clad agents, dressed down in civilian clothes. She looked back at Loki.

He panted, lifted his chin, staring hard at the oncoming assault, and then crushed her against his side, nearly running as he turned in the opposite direction and fled.

– **łłłł** –

They hid among outbuildings, training facilities, storage bunkers, lab buildings.

Raine braced her hands on her knees when they stopped yet again, dodging behind a grey slab of concrete retaining wall.

Loki lifted his head, scanning their surroundings.

The cut on his cheek had dried a dark crimson-black, crusting over. But whenever he set his jaw the injury smarted, and Loki's head twitched with the sting of it. Now, standing still, he worked his fingers against the palms of his hands, scratching his nails against his skin agitatedly. Black strands of hair fell over his forehead, and he'd pressed his mouth into a thin line—perhaps in contemplation, perhaps from pain.

Raine caught her breath, pressed her hand flush against the throbbing stitch in her side just under her ribs. She straightened slowly, shoulders hunched.

"We could get a jeep from the garage… it's two blocks that direction." She tossed her head; white strands of hair, tugged loose from her braid, brushed against her nose.

Loki canted his head, looking at her severely. "That did work exceptionally well on my last departure from one of these reviling compounds," he agreed with a decided nod.

Faint shouting reached their ears. Radios crackled, a siren on a nearby tactile training center wailed the warning for a rogue operative.

"Good, let's go." Raine wrinkled her nose as she rose fully, turning and sprinting toward the garage. Loki followed easily.

She slammed through the rear-exit door, Loki close on her heels, and they began bounding down six flights of stairs to the ground floor of the garage. Loki stared at the steps they had yet to take. Impatience flickered over his angular face.

Raine shouted in surprise when Loki grabbed her and vaulted over the railing. He landed neatly, and she never hit the floor. He released her. Raine tugged on her collar, feeling shaken.

"Now what?" he murmured, raising a dark brow as he regarded her.

Raine inhaled, nodding. She looked through the vehicles. A navy truck without any agency markings on it stood out. She pointed. "That one."

Loki stood motionless. His green eyes flickered to her.

" _Right_." Wearily, Raine jogged to the driver's side.

Loki followed and watched her over the roof of the truck. She sent a faint sound-wave through the lock, tested for an alarm, broke it, and tugged the door open. Loki followed suit, and with a well-honed vibration on Raine's part, the truck's engine flooded to life.

Raine flung the gears in reverse and the tires squealed against the concrete as she back out.

Loki's fingers clenched the dash as he stared through the windshield warily, eyeing the skies.

"You totaled about seventy-five quin-jets last month; the operable ones are at another base—I think there are only two here, for transport." Raine spun the steering wheel, and the truck fishtailed around a corner as they left the garage behind.

"I see." A horn blared, Loki turned his head sharply.

A S.H.I.E.L.D. jeep careened down a ramp and skid across the road behind them, fender barely missing their bumper. It slammed into the sidewall on the left and remained still. A bullet cracked the mirror on Raine's side of the truck.

– **łłłł** –

The Director stalked through two glass doors as Agent Hill came toward him at a hurried clip. "Did they get out?"

"They breached the gate, sir."

Fury folded his arms and bent his head, staring out the window at the facility campus in an uproar. Vehicles rushed around and agents swarmed like so many insects.

Hill came abreast of him on his left. She was unhappy, it showed in the purse of her lips and the width of her stance. She was preparing to say something unpleasant. "You know Fording isn't a hostage, sir."

He turned. That was very unpleasant information. "And you can verify that, Hill?"

She looked down and then back up. Presented a curt nod. "Rogers saw them, sir. He – doesn't lie." She swallowed, nodding with certainty as she spoke. Fury glared out his good eye, gritting his teeth.

"Sir, how to we proceed without sending the country into a panic?"

Fury. Uncrossed his arms. "Get me Stark."

"Sir, he's in Miami, I don't think—"

"Just get it done, Hill!"

"Sir." She walked away, picked up a touchscreen, and keyed in the pass-code. Hill turned profile, nodding to the director to let him know the call was coming through on his comm.

 _"You are live with Tony Stark – this had better be important, Director. I gave up mimosas on the terrace for you,"_ Stark quipped, his voice mildly pleasant.

"Can you locate any of your prosthesis remotely?"

 _"Wow, not even a little foreplay— I **am** surprised; don't tell me I have to save the world again, I just clocked out on consulting for the day."_

"Stark, Agent Fording's gone off base, I need to locate her. Now tell me what I need to know; can you do it?"

 _"Sure, but why? I thought Fording was the whipped topping on the cherry pie of agents—second to Romanoff, naturally."_

Fury inhaled, stared at a medic team as they bandaged three of his agents sitting on a wall just outside of the building. "Fording went rogue, and she took Loki with her."

 _"The unbelievable bastard."_ Incredulity laced Stark's voice. _"I thought he tried to kill her? What does she want him for? Never mind, skip that– Let me fire up my suit, I'll be there in forty."_ Stark hung up, and Fury nodded to himself. He glanced at his hand, disclosing the bracelet in his palm.

– **łłłł** –

"I hope this is worth the cost," Loki remarked in the silence as they exited the S.H.I.E.L.D. compound, broke through a barrier, and managed to spin out of a spiral after a black SUV slammed into Loki's side of the truck.

Raine glanced at him and then looked back at the road. She swallowed. "You're dangerous, but you're not insane. There was a reason Dr. Banner picked up that staff of yours in the helicarrier, and I don't think people who jump off bridges mean to come out alive on the other side."

"What?" Loki's hand lashed out. His fingers curled around the steering wheel, iron-hard. He jerked it hard toward himself. Raine attempted to wrench it back from him, narrowing avoiding a collision with a silver Camry in the far-right lane. The driver blared her horn as they sailed passed.

"You heard me, now let go!" Raine closed her fingers around his wrist. She jumped into the black plain in her mind and did something she always hated. Clenching her teeth, she twisted the fetter until it nearly snapped the emerald and gold in half.

Loki gasped to her right, and his hand dropped heavily from the wheel.

A horn sounded to her left.

Raine jerked her eyes open, wrenching the steering to the right before she slammed into the side barrier as they went into a tunnel.

She glanced at Loki.

He'd braced his elbows on his knees, head pressed into his hands. The tunnel's lights made blue streaks in his raven hair. He breathed, it whistled out his mouth. He coughed wetly.

"I'm sorry—I hate when I have to do that." She felt tears blur her eyes in sympathy. She'd killed people doing that to them, choking out their power.

Loki hissed through his teeth. "Certainly, woman, certainly," he panted.

They flashed out of the tunnel and back into daylight.

Loki drew himself back up, his left hand curled into a tight fist on his knee, knuckles going white. His other hand ran across his mouth. His fingers grazed the cut on his face. He snarled, eyes closing as the injury smarted.

Raine eyed it, looking off the road for a moment. "Can't you heal that?"

"Can't you suppose I've tried?" Loki retorted, gingerly brushing a fingertip against the wound. He smeared a bead of blood across his cheekbone.

"Stop touching it before you give yourself warpaint," Raine scolded, feeling as if Rory had taken manifest of her body. She wasn't usually so sharp. All at once she missed her partner. Rory would have been a good brain in the backseat giving her suggestions and laying ground plans. Better than the snapping terrorist from another world sitting in the passenger seat beside her.

"Silence, Midgardian."

Raine wanted to tell him to shut up because it was all her doing that he was on the loose and chaotic lam, but she thought better of it. Flexing her fingers on the steering wheel, she checked the rear-view mirror for pursuing S.H.I.E.L.D. vehicles. But for the moment they seemed in the clear. She flicked the signal and glided into the left lane, barreling passed a Tahoe going an unbearable sixty.

"Why won't it heal?" She tried to filter the worry from her voice, but she couldn't remove it entirely.

"The weapon was created using the tesseract, was it not?" Loki's voice sounded detached, almost with a scholarly air.

"I think so." Raine frowned, moved into another lane, took an exit, merged onto another highway. She nodded. "It must have been, it had a similar power signature to your staff."

"Very well, that is the reason." He swallowed, lifted his chin. "That, and your fetter." Loki became silent. His color returned slowly.

"Will it heal at all?"

Loki peered through the windshield. He stared as they came up abreast of a car. They pulled away, Loki looked back at the driver of the other vehicle for a moment. His tongue caught on the corner of his mouth as he straightened in his seat.

"Oh, I imagine so," he replied dryly.

"I'll clean it up when we get somewhere safe."

"I do not like being touched."

"Okay." Raine tried not to think about how free he was with picking other people up or throwing them around and ignoring their personal space. She fell silent and Loki did likewise.

* * *

 **A/N:**

 **As always, please review! I'll answer any and all questions with a PM!**

 **WH**


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